Leadership Books

"Leadership is influence." — John Maxwell

This is a list of my favorite and noteworthy best leadership books.

When I think of leadership, I think of influence, change, connection, conviction, inspired action, empowerment, decisive action, forward-thinking, and vision. The leadership books below help provide leadership skills, including mindsets, methodologies, and methods. I test many of the leadership books below while leading programs, projects, and initiatives at Microsoft.

I put the bulk of the list in categories so you can explore relevant leadership books and you can easily compare against your existing leadership books library.

Featured Guests

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Guy Kawasaki on the top 10 reasons to self-publish. Guy’s new book, APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book is all about self-publishing and how to control the publishing process to produce high-quality books.

Tim Ferriss’ new book The 4-Hour Chef is now out. I had the pleasure of talking with Tim Ferriss about his new book. The 4-Hour Chef is more than a cookbook — it’s a cookbook for life. As you may know, Tim Ferriss it the best-selling author of The 4-Hour Work Week and The 4-Hour […]

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Marie Forleo on her lessons learned in life. Marie is a best-selling author, speaker, online-entrepreneur, Nike Athlete and Master Trainer, fitness personality, dancer, and choreographer.

Editor’s note: What does somebody who spent a year test-driving principles, tips, theories, and scientific studies on happiness think are the real keys to happiness? That’s what I wanted to know. This is a guest post on lessons learned in happiness by Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen is a best selling author and former lawyer. What’s interesting to me about Gretchen is that she studied happiness by making it a project. During The Happiness Project, Gretchen spent a year test-driving lessons in happiness from Aristotle to Oprah.